Effects of Mass Media Part I

For the past week, I was struggling to find motivation to blog. After class today, I found some motivation. Today we talked about the Effects of Mass Media. We have talked about this earlier in the semester and I have expressed the effects of media several times throughout other blogs. I do agree with parts of the Magic Silver Bullet Theory. This offers that media are direct, immediate, uniform, and powerful. I agree that media is direct and immediate, in the sense that we do have access to some form of media pretty much, anytime and anywhere we want. Media is also very powerful. Media does influence our views, whether we realize it or not. I don’t necessarily think that media is uniform because it doesn’t effect us all in the same ways and we don’t all consume the same amount of media or the same kinds.
I also found the different uses and gratifications to be very interesting. The two motives that we talked about were Utilitarian and Ritual. As I thought about both of these, I would say that I am more of a utilitarian user. When I look back on the past, I would say that I was more of a ritual user in high school. Now that I have a lot more work to do, I don’t find the time to use it for pleasure as often. I currently use media for lots of schoolwork, information seeking. I also use it to form my identity through Facebook and socialization, (which is pleasure as well).
To be continued....